Sharing Stories - Beyond Gender - Session 1

I joined Sonja's Sharing Stories - Beyond Gender session on Saturday (8/8). I'd missed the first one so I was on catch up mode! Was a great experience in attempted creativity. I found it very difficult to find a creative outlet and trawled through media suggestions looking for something that appealed to me. But even harder was reaching down inside and pulling something forth that I thought I could recognize as me. (or understanding that was the aim of the exercise :P )

I'd planned something similar in my early transition. It was easy to hate what I physically saw, as that was what I'd been doing all along, but I wanted to find something that I could latch hold of and call me. I felt like "I" had been pushed deep inside and crunched like a star turned neutron star... or worse... that what I would call "myself," would turn into a black hole. (Star metaphor overload!!)

Over my transition I've found that their is much less pressure bearing down on "me," letting it spring back. But this exercise is not just about taking the pressure off... its about allowing "yourself" to grow outwards.

All this talk of the inner soul got me looking at looking inwards. So I figured I'd start with an eye :D I photographed my eye and re-drew it. With a plan to Water Colour the lens to show the comparison of soul to reality... through the 'transition' lens (you can use that one :P ). One side of the eye would be what I see, the other would be what I felt. Or something...

Then I thought, why stop at that. Why don't we view more of myself under "transition" lenses. So I repeated the process with my lips. Redrawing them, doodling a crescent moon and little wings (yeah, they look like mountains... "D*mmit Jim, I'm an Engineer not an Artist" :P). Then I began to colour them with the WaterColours. [ WaterColoured Eye & Mouth ]

I'm still looking for ways to convert images of "myself" to media, but I'm pleased with the process so far and look forward to the next one.